Bust-Length Portrait of a Woman in Profile to the Left

Along with a corresponding drawing in the Morgan's collection, the present study was once considered to be the work of the goldsmith, sculptor, and medalist, Sperandio.¹ In 1909, G.F Hill noted the correlation between Sperandio’s medals and two drawings traditionally attributed to Pisanello (by 1395-ca. 1455).² This connection became the basis of a small, conjectural corpus of drawings ascribed to Sperandio, to which another sheet, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, was later added.³ Unlike these, the Morgan studies are drawn on vellum and depict caricatures with more distorted physiognomies that are seemingly unrelated to portrait medals.

Footnotes:

1. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. I, 43c:2.
2. Hill 1909, 24-25. One drawing is now in the British Museum, London, inv. 1936-10-10-16; the other is now in the Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 28919.
3. National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. 1973.37.1.a.